


Lancelot and Percival

by lighteningboltfanatic



Category: Cursed (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lighteningboltfanatic/pseuds/lighteningboltfanatic
Summary: A conversation between two fey's
Relationships: Percival & Lancelot, The Weeping Monk & Squirrel
Comments: 3
Kudos: 168





	Lancelot and Percival

One of Lancelot’s earliest memories is of his mother. Like him, she had brown hair and these beautiful blue eyes with birthmarks akin to his. She used to trace the markings of his eyes and then the ones of her own and she would smile wide and say, “I love you, my son.” 

The words faded with time but he could still hear it echoing distantly in his dreams. 

Above all, he remembers the last time that he heard it. He must’ve been seven or eight when the men in the red cloaks invaded the village, burning every home in cleansing fire. Father Carden had held him down and yelled about how they were all being cleansed, as he listened to his mothers screams of agony and of his name until she was reduced to no more than a burnt body and ash.  
  
He was punished day and night for years after, conditioned to hold and swing a sword in every way possible, to be the best there ever was and the best that there would ever be. 

He became the greatest warrior, he had to be. He had to make up for what he had been born.   
He was no longer Lancelot, the fey of the Ash folk, he was the weeping monk of the red paladins. 

The pain is what made the weeping monk blink open, his arms tightening slightly around his charge to keep him from falling off, hands still gripping at the horse’s reins, smaller hands resting on top of his bloodied ones. 

“What’s your name, boy?” Monk asks the small boy, wincing slightly when his clothes rub against his open wounds. “Squirrel,” The boy answers but the Monk feels the need to point out, “A squirrel is an animal…” He pauses to take a shaky breath, “What name were you given?” The small boy takes a moment before answering, “I don’t like that name.” It takes Monk a moment to speak on the account of his injuries, breathing in slow breaths. “It is still your name.” The boy huffs and the monk wonders if he rolls his eyes, “Fine,” he pauses for a moment before, “It’s Percival.” Monk’s lips quirk up if only slightly, something akin to his first smile in decades as the name rolls off his tongue in eight letters, “Percival.”

The name echoes in his head along with the galloping of the horse’s hoofs against the road. 

“Do you have a real name?” Percival asks with his hands still tight on top of the monks bloodied ones. It takes a moment for the monk to speak, the letters rough in his throat for a moment before, “Lancelot,” He pauses, surprised the name doesn’t burn as much as it should, surprised it doesn’t feel as strange as it should. “A long time ago, my name was Lancelot.” The boy looks back at him but doesn’t say anything for a while and Monk enjoys the silence, something familiar, but now, that familiarity feels wrong and makes him want to itch at his skin. 

The boy isn’t quiet for long however, beginning to talk about whatever it is he can think of, anywhere from a patch of grass to his old friends.   
After a while, topics shift abruptly. 

“You’re fey.” It isn’t a question and Monk wonders how he figured it out but settles instead for just nodding. Perhaps he put it together when Abbot made that comment or he saw the Monk’s hand when he was fighting Gawain. He ignores those questions however, deciding that it doesn’t really matter. 

He’s thirsty and his body itches for something it hasn’t in so long, the forest. The incident with Gawain was the first time in many, many years that he’s felt the power, the yearning of the forest, and he itches for it again, itches as they get closer and closer until he can see a large dense forest barely a foot away. “You betrayed your kind.” Monk doesn’t say anything, hands tighter on the reigns. “I’m not mad.” Monk would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised, he’d also be lying if he said the words said by the boy meant nothing to him, for some reason they mean something, although the Monk isn’t sure what.

“I think you were hurt, for a very long time.” Monk swallows back air and rocks backwards for a moment, grip loosening before it tightens again.    
The movement doesn’t go lost on the young boy.   
  
“We need to stop, now! You’re tired!” Monk wants to protest but the boy is headstrong and jumps off the horse, waiting stubbornly for Monk to follow. It takes Monk a moment but he slowly steps off, his wounds burning as he does as the boy catches him, helping him to the ground.    
He can feel the forest in a way he hasn’t in so long, it’s extremely overwhelming, like the vibrations of a hundred armies vibrating under his feet.    
He doesn’t realize until Percival is lowering his hand to the ground that neither of them ever let go. He holds back for several moments and gets several rude looks from the boy before green vines climb up both his and Percival’s arms, healing them both in the process. 

Monk can feel strength seeping into him as his burns stop and the two meet eyes just as the vines begin to disappear back into the forest floor.    
Percival, for once, is completely silent and instead of saying anything, he simply throws himself at Monk, hugging the older man tightly. It takes Monk a moment before he returns it, the unfamiliarity-familiarity to the hug feels like something from a dream, a dream long ago. A dream that involves his mother.    
“Thank you, Lancelot! Thank you!” The name rings through his head and warms his stomach instead of unsettling it.    
“We should keep moving.” Percival nods and Lancelot helps him onto the horse before grabbing the reigns, walking beside the horse. 

“Tell me a story, Percival.” Lancelot finds himself saying as the sun begins to set in the east. 

The reigns rest tightly in his grasps and small hands rest still on top of his own, the boy’s eyes staying on him as he watches ahead, occasionally glancing over at the boy. 

A wide grin stretches across the boy’s face and he begins telling Lancelot of his friends, his friends Lancelot has tried to kill, several times. In the moment though, neither man care, because as Percival reminds him several times over their very long journey, he is Lancelot now.    
He’s not clean, he’s still burdened by the blood that bathes his tortured soul and he’s not sure he will ever be clean. He’s definitely not fully himself again and he isn’t sure if he can ever return to the whimsy and wonder of his once loved seven-year-old self, but saving Percival was one thing. And for now, he knows two things above all; one, he’s going to keep Percival safe even if he loses his life doing so. And two, he is never, ever, going to be the weeping monk again. 


End file.
